Bureaucracy vs. common sense

The Capital Region Airport Commission, which operates Richmond International Airport, has been leasing land it owns to Henrico Co. for use as a park-and-ride lot for use by bus and carpool commuters. The lease has been $1 per year since 1984, according to the TD.

The FAA, however, has a rule barring below-market leases. So the park-and-ride lot will move.

This, to me, is an example of bureaucracy killing common sense community-oriented policies. If the Airport Commission wants to donate its land to improve transit in their community, why shouldn’t they be allowed to? Bureaucratic regulations are necessarily blunt instruments that always have unintended consequences, but it’s especially disheartening when those consequences hurt well-intentioned efforts.

And unfortunately, this bureaucratic rule by the FAA is making it more difficult to decrease our dependency on automobiles.